


Looking for a reason

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: Suilad Aran Thranduil [49]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Battle Under The Trees, Because I Wrote This Instead, Because I wrote this dumb thing instead, Despair, I should be working on my assignment for uni, I will say - Freeform, about how social media makes people depressed, but am I?, but am I? No, no, song-fic, supposed to be writing my Avatar fic, than reading through all the stupid studies, this was less depressing for me to write, why am I doing a psyc degree!?1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: He's always the one who picks himself up out of the dirt and pushes on, he doesn't know why.
Relationships: Galion & Thranduil (Tolkien)
Series: Suilad Aran Thranduil [49]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/65456
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Looking for a reason

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Still Alive (Looking For a Reason) by R.E.D but honestly soooo many of their songs are so PERFECT for Thranduil. Ugh, my heart!!

“I am still alive.”

The four words that have come to define him and everything that has lead him to this point in his life. From Doriath to Eregion, to Lindon, to Lorien, to Mordor, to Amon Lanc, to his current home in the mountain.

“I am still alive.”

Everyone around him seems to fall, everyone he loves and everyone he hates. Everyone he leans on and everyone he shoves away. Everyone he looks for and everyone he turns from.

They fall, where he carries on, but they all survive in his heart and it is so heavy carrying them with him, carrying them everywhere he goes.

_Melian, Thingol, Elmo, Galadhon, Luthien, Beren, Nimloth, Dior, Galathil, Elurín, Eluréd, Elwing, Belien, Eӓrendil, Elros, Oropher, Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor, Lalaithiel, Celebrian._

So many that he carries in his heart. So many that he left behind in the dust and debris, while he clawed his way out.

He’d say he never looked back; he’s done little else.

_“Is this where the story ends?  
Or are we just beginning?  
Live the lie and we'll pretend,  
We're fighting for something.  
If I lose the world I know,  
If the night, it comes for me,  
If tomorrow fades and nothing matters,  
What's it all for?”_

His voice he keeps quiet, as he would if he were surrounded by his court. He cannot allow his people to think he despairs, cannot let them see that his heart has grown so big it is crumbling under its own weight. Cannot let them see that he carries so many of the dead with him, he doesn’t know how to let them go. He never has. He’s only ever clung to them tighter, buried them within him and as they fester, they’re taking him with them.

“ _I am still alive.  
I am still alive.  
What's it all for?  
What's it all for?  
What's it all for?  
I'm looking for a reason.  
I’m looking for a reason.”_

It’s not even that he wants to die, that’s not how he feels. He just wants to know why. Why him? Why is he the one who is always left behind? The sole survivor? The one who gets to claw through all the wreckage of everything that has gone wrong? Why is he the one who has to push up onto his feet and try and piece everything back together? Why is he the one who gets to go home? Why is the one who has to rebuild his home, over and over and over again? Why is he the one who gets to shoulder all the burdens and carry all the weight?

“ _Waiting for a blind ascent,  
To keep you from living.  
You've got a scar you need to mend,  
Ruined where you fell.  
If all we are is meant to fade,  
If it's all meaningless,  
If we just burn it down,  
And nothing matters._”

Why are they fighting so hard when so many of his kind flock to the Grey Havens every day? What are they fighting and dying for when they’re just giving it up? He has held this forest since it came into his keeping. Given so much of himself into the forest that even he doesn’t know where he ends and the forest begins. He doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why he’s cried and fought and bled and begged for this land. Doesn’t know why he’s let his only son do the same. Doesn’t know why he’s chipped away at his soul, giving it over to the forest piece by aching piece until he can no longer tell what is him and what is the forest.

He doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why when they could all just sail away. Go to Aman, live their lives in peace, never have to raise a sword again.

“ _I am still alive.  
I am still alive.  
What's it all for?  
What's it all for?  
What's it all for?  
I'm looking for a reason.  
I’m looking for a reason.”_

He knows when the morning comes, he’ll have to go and fight. Have to go back beneath his burning trees and watch his forest and his people die around him while he struggles to save them. He knows that when morning comes, he cannot have any doubt, any fear, any despair.

But he doesn’t know why they do this. Not anymore. Doesn’t know why they ever did it. Why they didn’t just pack up and sail over the sea the moment Sauron first revealed himself. So much lost to defeat one being, for a land that they could have left at any time.

* * *

When the orcs retreat, not back to Dol Guldur, but out from under the trees, and his people start sounding the victory calls he can’t breathe. There’s something stuck in his throat that he thinks might be a sob, but he can’t breathe around it.

“Mellon nin?” Galion’s voice, when it comes, sounds like its sounding through water, muffled and barely comprehensible. “Breathe, Thranduil. You must breathe.” Galion’s hands on his shoulders are firm but gentle and Thranduil forces himself to meet his friends eyes, even though he can’t breathe. “Come on, breathe with me. In… hold it… out.” Thranduil tries to sync their breathing, but he can’t, his chest hurts and his eyes are burning and his legs are trembling and his thoughts are jumbling all over themselves so loudly, and he just doesn’t know _why._

He doesn’t fight when Galion all but hauls him away, through the battlefield, through the burning trees and over the blood drenched earth, until suddenly, the forest’s song is blooming in his mind and in his ears and the sob, that aborted itself in his throat, suddenly comes up and he can’t seem to stop. His legs collapsing beneath him as his body shakes as his heart all but explodes in his chest.

“I’m still alive.” He exclaims, sobbing helplessly against Galion’s chest, when his old friend pulls him into a tight embrace.

“Aye, you are.” Galion agrees, his voice shaking and Thranduil laughs, the sound hysteric to his own ears.

“ _Why?_ ” he demands, gulping in precious air, as he tries to rein in his sobs. “Why me, Galion? Why do I get to survive when so many others are dead?”

“I don’t know, aran nin.” Galion answers, somehow managing to tighten his hold, even though Thranduil thought such impossible. “I don’t know, but I’m grateful for it. I’ve lost enough kings, Thranduil, enough friends. I can’t stomach the idea of losing another one.”

Thranduil wants to ask why any of them bothered fighting in the first place, but now, in this place, surrounded by the song of his forest, he knows why.

They fight for those who cannot. They fight because they believe that the peace that will come after all this fighting will be worth it. They fight because they love these lands that they call their own. They fight because they must, because if they do not fight, who will? They fight for their children, in the hope that they will leave their children a better world than the one their own parents left them. They fight in the hope that the future will be brighter, bigger, better.

Sure, they could go to Aman, but that’s little more than giving up, surrendering, running away.

Thranduil doesn’t know how to do those things. He’s never known. It’s why he clawed his way out of Doriath, _twice_. It’s why he survived at the very gates of Mordor. It’s why he picked himself back up and stumbled on where everyone thought he’d burn in Dragonfire. It's why he scrambled out of the dirt when his home burned all around him, _again_. It’s why, after he lost person after person after person after person, he still kept on, rolled himself out of bed every morning and carried on, because he doesn’t know how to do anything different. He doesn’t know how to let go, how to give in, how to give up. If he did, he wouldn't hurt so much.

He has times, like now, where the world collapses in on him and it’s all just too much. But, when the moment passes, he picks himself back up and he pushes on. Because he must. Because that’s all he knows. Because to do anything else would spit in the face of six thousand years of suffering and surviving and he’s never been one to throw away all of his own hard work.

So, when he can breathe again, he pulls away from Galion and pushes himself up onto his feet and he launches himself straight back into his duties, straight back into ruling his kingdom and doing everything he can for his people.

Because he must. Because he doesn’t know any different. And later, when he gets the chance to think of it, he’ll remind himself that he lives and that it isn’t a bad thing, unlikely, miraculous, lucky, and almost beyond impossible, but never a bad thing.


End file.
